In the last chapter, which introduces a new part of the subject of Matthew, we saw that the two great pictures introduced were, first, the hypocritical disobedience of those who boasted of the law, completely exposed out of their own prophets, as well as by the touchstone of the Lord Himself; and, secondly, the true nature of grace shown to one whose circumstances demanded nothing but sovereign mercy if she were to be blessed at all. I need not enter more into a chapter already looked at, but I would recall also the particular manifestation at the close of the Lord's perfect, patient grace towards Israel, spite of the condition of the Jewish leaders. If He compassionated the Gentiles, His heart still yearned over the people, and He showed it by repeating the great miracle of feeding thousands in the wilderness, though this was not intended to be the figure of His dispensational retirement from earth, which, as we saw (chap. 14.), followed the first miracle of feeding the multitudes—the type of our Lord's occupation at the right hand of God.
Now, we have another picture quite distinct from the last, though akin to it. It is not the flagrant disobedience of the law, through human tradition, but the source of all disobedience—unbelief. Hence, in the language employed by the Holy Ghost, there is only a shade of difference between the words unbelief and disobedience. The former is the root of which the latter is the fruit. Having shown us the gross systematic violation of God's law, even by those who were religious leaders in Israel, and having convicted them of it, even about the highest earthly relationships, which that law bound and encouraged them most of all to honor, a deeper principle is now brought out. All that disobedience of God flowed from unbelief of Himself, and, consequently, misapprehension of their own moral condition. These two things always go together. Ignorance of self flows from ignorance of God; and ignorance of both ourselves and God is proved by despising Jesus; and what is true of the worldly man or the unbeliever in full, partially applies to Christians who in any measure slight the will and person of the Lord. All these are only the workings of that heart of unbelief, of which the apostle warns even believers. The grand provision against this, the operation of the Holy Ghost, in contrast with the working of the natural mind of man, comes out here plainly. “The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came, and tempting, desired that he would show them a sign from heaven.” They were beginning the same story over again; but now it is higher up the source, and, of course, therefore worse in principle. It is an awful thing to find opposed parties with one only thing that unites them—dislike of Jesus; persons who could have torn each other to pieces at another time, but this is their gathering point—tempting Jesus. “The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came tempting him.” There was nothing in conflict between the scribes and Pharisees, but a wide chasm separated the Sadducees and Pharisees. Those were the free-thinkers of the day, these the champions who stood up for ordinances and for the authority of the law. But both joined to tempt Jesus. They desired a sign from heaven. The most significant token that God ever gave man, was before them in the person of His Son, who eclipsed all other signs. But such is unbelief, that it can go into the presence of the full manifestation of God, can gaze at a light brighter than the sun at noonday, and there and then ask God to give a farthing candle. “But Jesus answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather, for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather to-day, for the sky is red and lowring. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?” Their own moral condition was the sign and proof that judgment was imminent. Doubtless, for those who could see, there was the fair weather, the day-spring from on high that had visited them in Jesus. They saw it not; but could they not discern the foul weather? They were in the presence of the Messiah, and were asking Him, who consummated all signs in His person, to give them a sign from heaven! The God that made heaven and earth was there, but the darkness comprehended it not. “He came to his own and his own received him not.” Nothing could be more awful, but they were utterly blind; they could discern physical changes, but they had no perception of moral and spiritual features. “A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it but the sign of the prophet Jonas. And he left them and departed.” Such was His word to them. Men constantly err as to the character of Jesus. They imagine that He could use no strong language and feel no anger; but yet there it is in, the word, written in the light. It is the same thing now as ever. Unbelief is always blind, and shows its blindness most against Jesus. The same kind of unbelief that could not then discern who and what Jesus was, sees not now Jesus coming, and discerns not the signs of the times, or of their own impending ruin. It is the moral condition of men, no matter where they are, only the more remarkably manifested where the light of God is. If England be now the focus where God's light is more displayed than in any other place, it is this which makes all the more glaring the unbelief of men, who perhaps are engaged in His work, who are professing to help it on, one way or another, and at the same time are utterly careless as to whether they are walking according to His will revealed in the Bible. Clearly we have no right merely to follow the word of God in what suits us, but the word of God as a whole, for our own souls first, and for all the children of God next, as far as in us lies. This is what we have gravely to consider. If we cannot act upon people's consciences, at least let us keep our own unsullied ourselves. There is always the question of personal allegiance to the Savior, and this is what puts us to the test above all. Precept is most weighty when commended by our own example.
Here we have our Lord who does not hesitate to touch the evil with unsparing hand. He was the perfect fullness of love: but do men remember He is the One who said, “wicked and adulterous generation,” “generation of vipers,” &c.? It flows from true love, if men would but think so, and bow to the truth that convicts them. To submit, at God's word, to the truth in this world is to be saved; to be convicted of the truth only in the next world is to be lost forever. Christ was the Faithful Witness; He brought God face to face with man, and caused His perfect light to shine upon them. Why, then, could not He grant them a sign? God, full of love as He is, never does anything to the disparagement of Him who made Himself known. Jesus can meet a soul in its sin; He may eat with publicans, to show that He is able to receive sinners and forgive sins to the uttermost; but He will never give any sign to satisfy the unbelief which rejects Jesus. These Pharisees and Sadducees did not hear His voice of grace. They listened only with their outward ears; but they were compelled to hear their own sentence from the Judge of all the earth: and shall not He do right? “A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign.” Had Jesus not been there, to ask for a sign would not have been so wicked; but His presence made it audacious unbelief and frightful hypocrisy. It was flying in the face of what God had already vouchsafed, and asking for something altogether inconsiderable in the presence of His best gift. So now, the death and resurrection of Christ is preached to a soul that turns away from it. He says, salvation is not so easy a thing as all that; I must do something myself. This is asking a sign, and that not even from heaven, but from his own heart. And what is his heart? God declares that from his heart proceeds everything that is wicked. Yet he still clings to the fatal delusion, that some good thing must be got out of that which God pronounces only and always evil: and so he turns away from Jesus and God's righteousness in Him, that has been perfectly brought out, because Jesus is risen and at the right hand of God. When you find very high religious pretensions along with disparagement of Jesus, what can be more offensive to God? “A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it but the sign of the prophet Jonas.” And what was that? The sign of one that disappeared from the earth, that passed into the figure of death away from the Jewish people, and after a while was given back to them. It was the symbol of death and resurrection, and our Lord immediately acted upon it. “He left them and departed.” He would pass under the power of death; He would rise again, and would carry the message, which Israel had despised, to the poor Gentiles.
But there are other forms of unbelief; and the next scene is with His disciples: so true is it that what you find working in its grossest shape in an unconverted man may be traced, in another way, perhaps, in believers. “Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.” They did not understand Him: they reasoned among themselves; and whenever Christians begin so to reason, they never understand anything. “They reasoned among themselves saying, It is because we have taken no bread.” There is such a thing, of course, as sound and solid deduction. The difference is that wrong reasoning always starts from man, and tries to rise to God, while right reasoning starts from God towards man. The natural mind can only infer from the experience of men what they think or feel, and thus form within a sort of image of what God must be. This is the basis, the aim, and the character of human speculation in divine things; whereas God is the source, strength, and guide of the thoughts of faith. How do I know God? In the Bible, which is the revelation of Christ from the first of Genesis to the end of the Apocalypse. I see Him there, the key-stone of the arch, the center of all Scripture speaks of; and unless the connection of Christ with everything is seen, nothing is understood aright. There is the first grand fallacy, the leaving out of God's revealing Himself in His Son. It is not the light behind a veil as under the Jewish system, but infinite blessing now that God has come to man and man is brought to God. In the life of Christ I see God drawing nigh to man, and in His death man brought nigh to God. The veil is rent; all is out, of man on the one hand, and of God on the other, as far as God is pleased to reveal Himself to man in this world. All stands in the boldest relief in the life and death of Christ. But disciples are apt to be very dull about these things now as ever; and so when He warned them about the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, they thought that He was merely speaking of something for daily life—very much like what we see at the present time. But our Lord “said unto them, O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread?” Why did they not think of Christ? Would they have troubled themselves about loaves if they had thought of Him? Impossible! But what may there not be in a believer's heart, even before Him in whose hands is the earth and the fullness thereof? They were anxious, or thought Him so, about bread! “Do ye not yet understand, neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets ye took up? Neither the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many baskets ye took up? How is it that ye do not understand that I spike it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees? Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.” And this is what disciples even now often misapprehend. They do not understand the hatefulness of unsound doctrine. They are alive to moral evil. If a person gets drunk, or falls into any other gross scandal, they know, of course, it is very wicked; but if the leaven of evil doctrine work, they do not feel it. Why is it that disciples are more careful of that which more natural conscience can judge, than of doctrine, which destroys the foundation of everything both for this world and for that which is to come What a serious thing that disciples should need to be warned of this by the Lord, and even then not understand! He had to explain it to them. There was the working of unbelief among the disciples; making the body the great aim, and not seeing the all-importance of these corrupt doctrines which menaced souls in so many insidious forms around them.
But there is another way and scene in which unbelief works. This chapter is the dissection of the root of many a form of unbelief. “By faith we understand,” says the apostle to the Hebrews. The worldly man tries to understand first and then to believe; the Christian begins with the feeblest understanding, perhaps, but he believes God: his confidence is in One above himself? and thus out of the stone there is raised up a child unto Abraham. The Lord now questions the disciples as to the real gist of all the matter, whether among Pharisees, Sadducees, or disciples themselves. “He asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?” It is now Christ's person which comes out; and this, I need hardly say, is deeper than all other doctrine. “Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist; some Elias; others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.” There are so many opinions among men, unbelief argues, that certainty is impossible. Some say one thing and some another. You talk of truth and Scripture, yet, after all, it is only your view. But what says faith? Certainty, from God, is our portion, the moment that we see who Jesus is. He is the only remedy that banishes difficulty and doubt from the mind of man. “He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?” This was for the purpose of bringing out now what is the pivot of man's blessing and God's glory, and becomes the turning point of the chapter. Among these very disciples we are to have a blessed confession from one of them—the power of God working in a man who had been rebuked for his want of faith before, as he was indeed just after. When we are really broken down before God about our little faith, the Lord can reveal some deeper, higher view of Himself than we ever had before. The disciples had been relating the various opinions of men: one said he was Elias; another, John the Baptist. “But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Most glorious confession! In the Psalms He is spoken of as the Son of God, but very differently. There it is as one dealing with the kings of the earth, who are called upon to take care how they behave themselves. But the Son of the living God. The Holy Ghost now lifts up the veil to show that the Son of the living God involves depths far beyond an earthly dominion, howsoever glorious. He is the Son of that living God who can communicate life even to his enemies. “Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I also say unto thee,” &c.
First, there is the Father revealing; and the moment Christ hears Himself confessed as the Son of the living God, He also sets His own seal and honors the confessor. It is the assertion of One who at once rises up to His own intrinsic dignity. “And I also say unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” He gives Simon a new name. As God had given Abraham, Sarah, &c., because of some fresh manifestation of Himself, so does the Son of God. It had been prophetically announced before; but now comes out for the first time the reason why it was affixed to him. “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.” What rock? The confession Peter had made that Jesus was the son of the living God. On this the Church is built. Israel was governed by a law; the Church is raised on a solid, and imperishable, and divine foundation—on the person of the Son of the living God. And when this fuller confession breaks from the lips of Peter, the answer comes, Thou art Peter—thou art a stone—a man that derivest thy name from this rock on which the Church is built.
In the early chapters of the Acts, Peter always speaks of Jesus as the holy child (or servant) Jesus. He speaks of Him as a man who went about doing good; as the Messiah slain by the wicked hands of men, whom God raised up from the dead. Whatever Peter might know Jesus to be, yet when preaching to the Jews, he presents Him to them simply as the Christ, as the predicted Son of David, who had walked here below, whom they had crucified and God had raised again. Then, at Stephen's martyrdom, a new term is used about the Lord. That blessed witness looks up and says, “I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.” It is not now merely Jesus as the Messiah, but “the Son of man,” which implies his rejection. When He was refused as the Messiah, Stephen, finding that this testimony was rejected, is led of God to testify of Jesus as the exalted Son of man at God's right hand. When Paul is converted, which is given in the very next chapter but one, he goes straightway and preaches “Christ in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God.” He did not merely confess Him, but preached Him as such. And to Paul was entrusted the great work of bringing out the truth about “the church of God.”
So here when the Lord hears Peter's confession, He says, “Upon this rock I will build my church.” You understand the glory of my person; I will show you the work I am going to accomplish. Mark the expression. It is not, I have been building; but I will build my Church. He had not built it yet, nor begun to build it: it was altogether new. I do not mean by this, that there had not before been souls believing in Him and regenerate of the Spirit; but the aggregate of the individual saints that were born of God, from the beginning to the end of time, it is an error to call “the Church.” It is a common notion which, I am bold to say, has not got one thread of Scripture to give even the appearance of truth to it. The expression in Acts 7:38, “The church in the wilderness,” means the whole congregation—the mass of Israel—the greater part of whose carcasses fell in the wilderness. Can you call that “the church of God?” There are only a few believers among them. People are deceived in this by the sound. The word, “Church in the wilderness,” merely means the congregation there. The very same word is applied to the confused assembly in Acts 19, which would have torn Paul to pieces. If it were translated like Acts 7, it would be, the “Church in the theater,” and the blunder is obvious. The word that is translated “church,” simply means assembly. To find out what is the nature of the assembly, we must examine the scriptural usage and the object of the Holy Ghost. For you might have a good or bad assembly: an assembly of Jews, of Gentiles, or God's assembly distinct from either and contrasted with both, as can be readily and undeniably seen in 1 Cor. 10:32. Now it is this last alone which we mean, i.e., God's assembly, when we speak of “the church.”
What then, to return, does our Lord intimate when He says, “Upon this rock I will build my church?” Clearly something that He was going to erect upon the confession that He was the Son of the living God, whom death could not conquer, but only give occasion to the shining forth of His glory by resurrection. “Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades” —the power of death – “shall not prevail against it.” This last does not mean the place of the lost, but the condition of separate spirits. “And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” The Church and the kingdom of heaven are not the same thing. It is never said that Christ gave the keys of the Church to Peter. Had the keys of the Church or of heaven been given to him, I do not wonder that people should have imagined a pope. But “the kingdom of heaven” means the new dispensation now taking place on earth. God was going to open a new economy, free to Jews and Gentiles, the keys of which he committed to Peter. One of these keys was used, if I may so say, at Pentecost when he preached to the Jews, and the other when he preached to the Gentiles. It was the opening of the kingdom to people, whether Jews or Gentiles. “I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose in earth shall be loosed in heaven.” The eternal forgiveness of sins has to do with God only, though there is a sense in which forgiving was committed to Peter and the other apostles, which remains true now. Whenever the Church acts in the name of the Lord and really does His will, the stamp of God is upon their deeds. “My Church,” built upon this rock, is His body—the temple of believers built upon Himself. But “the kingdom of heaven” embraces every one that confesses the name of Christ. That was begun by preaching and baptizing. When a man is baptized, he enters “the kingdom of heaven,” even if he should turn out a hypocrite. He will never be in heaven, of course, if he is an unbeliever; but he is in “the kingdom of heaven.” He may either be a tare in the kingdom of heaven, or he may be real wheat; an evil or a faithful servant; a foolish virgin or a wise one. The kingdom of heaven takes in the whole scene of Christian profession.
But we have seen, when Christ speaks of “My church,” it is another thing. It is what is built upon the recognition and confession of His person, and we know that he that believeth “that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God.” And again “He that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God overcometh the world.” He has got the first workings of life in him if he acknowledges Jesus as Christ; but he has the power of the Holy Ghost if he acknowledges Him as Son. The higher the acknowledgment of Christ, the more spiritual energy in going through this world and overcoming it. If one believer is more spiritual than another, it is because he understands the person of Christ better. All power depends upon the appreciation of Christ. Mark our Lord's words first: “Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” Christ must be found outside the Church and before it; Christ must be discerned first and foremost by the individual soul; Christ, and what He is, must, before and above all, be revealed to the heart by the Father. He may employ persons who belong to the Church as instruments, or may directly use His own word. But, whatever the means employed, it is the Father revealing the glory of the Son to a poor sinful man; and when that is settled with the individual, Christ says, “Upon this rock I will build my church.” Faith in Christ is essentially God's order and way before the question of the Church comes in. This is one great controversy between God and the mystery of iniquity which is now working in this world. The aim of the Holy Ghost is to glorify Christ; whereas that of the other is to glorify self. The Holy Ghost is carrying on this blessed revelation that the Father has made of the Son; and when the individual question is settled, then comes the corporate privilege and responsibility—the Church.
It is not, therefore, enough to say I have got Christ, infinitely blessed as that is. If I know that He is the Son of God, I ought to believe also that He is building His Church. Do I know my place there? Am I found walking in the light of Christ—a living stone ever in my place in that which He is building—in healthy action as a member of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones? The building of the Church is going on here. It was here that salvation was wrought, and here it is that the Church is being built upon this rock; and the gates of Hades, the invisible state or separate condition, shall not prevail against it. Death may come in, but the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. The Lord says in the Revelation, that He has the keys of death and Hades. The death of the believer, the Christian, is not the wages of sin: all is changed now. Christ is the Lord both of the dead and of the living; death is not our Lord, but Christ. “Whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord, whether, therefore, we live or die, we are the Lord's.” The Lord has absolute command over us; and therefore death is robbed of all that makes it so terrible; even to the believer that is looking at it with unbelieving eyes. The Lord here says that the gates of Hades shall not prevail against His Church. The book of the Revelation at the close, brings us its blessed light. That book which people commonly talk about as the most obscure in the Bible, is the very one to which we are most deeply indebted for light upon this and other parts. There you have the Lord with the keys of death and Hades. He gave the keys of the kingdom of heaven, to Peter, because he it was who was to preach to Jews and Gentiles. The keys did their office; the door was flung open on the day of Pentecost first, and afterward, yet more widely, when the Gentiles were brought in.